House turns off light bulb standards by voice vote

The Politco ^ | July 15, 2011 | DARREN GOODE

[NRG1973]

The House on Friday morning moved to block federal light bulb efficiency standards without even a roll call vote.

An amendment from Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) defunding the Energy Department's standards for traditional incandescent light bulbs to be 30 percent more energy efficient starting next year was approved rather anticlimactically by voice vote.

The success of the amendment appeared inevitable in the House, where the fate of the incandescent light bulb became a symbol in the fight against federal regulations.

Democrats and the White House have opposed the move to block the standards, which were included in a 2007 energy bill signed by President George W. Bush. DOE has said the standards could save consumers $6 billion a year.

[rcrngroup]

....included in a 2007 energy bill signed by President George W. Bush.

Dumber than dirt, pandering, capitulating dumb ass GW Bush strikes again. Fortunately we had enough Tea Party winners in 2010 to hopefully negate & overturn some of the socialist gubmint fiascos like this.

Outside of 0dumb0 & Carter, GW Bush is in a tight 3-way race for the most damage inflicted on America by their socialist big gubmint, globalist policies. IMO, GW Bush could have gone down as one of our greatest presidents, if only he had the intelligence to govern as a conservative and not as a demoRAT or uzzzlim, or pandering & appeasing to demoRATs & uzzlims.

[ChildOfThe60s]

DOE has said the standards could save consumers $6 billion a year.

None of their stinkin' business how I should "save" my money. And, they are liars. They make these numbers out of whole cloth.

What else do they have the right to tell me to buy because *they* decide how I should spend MY money?

This light bulb business is not at all minor. It is a steep part of the slippery slope of total despotism.

[Monorprise]

“During Prhibition, my father would periodically buy compressed blocks of a certain grain, hop, and yeast mixture that carried a prominent warning label:

WARNING! Mixing the contents of this package with 5 gallons of water, and... (rest of the detailed beer recipe followed) ...is a VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW!”

I must admit its hard to respect a Government that holds no respect for either its Constitutional limits nor our natural rights.

Let there be no doubt that the present Federal Government of these united States has long become abusive and destructive to the ends for which it was created. That any Government who’s only claim to legitimacy is the sword is in fact illegitimate, is an attribute of the ideals of American republicanism.

The fact that the Federal goverment does that and has done that sense the Civil War 150 years ago only serves to underscore that point.

It is therefore widely regarded as legitimate to disregard federal acts not in conformance with legitimate federal authority, and seek only to evade & disinform their cluzy overbearing force.

Let us hope that there desire for power can at least in some respects be checked by their crippling distance from their subjects. That they might be ignorant of our acclivities, and unwieldy of their local agents.

One day this illegitimate Federal monstrosity will fall, and on that day at least for a time we shall have the freedom of our forefathers again.

[Republican Wildcat]

I hope so...the the light they give off makes the colors look like they do outside on an overcast day - very dull / meshed together. It’s rather depressing to look at quite frankly.

[Gondring]

That is an area we could save huge amounts of energy, but I am not sure the technology is there yet to do things like replace high voltage transmission lines (where losses are staggering) or the like.

Doesn't the DOE say that something like 7% of the losses are in transmission? Most of it is the conversion from chemical to electrical power, but even if transmission is <10%, it would still be a great bonus if we could improve it. Note that I included capital costs in there, too. Some of the inefficiencies could be reduced, but they aren't deemed worthwhile because energy is still so cheap for those directly involved in the transaction.

There are third-party costs...just to make sure I understand the nature of what you reference (before I agree or disagree with that) could you provide a few examples?

To better explain the nature of these costs, let me give a non-energy example and maybe you have the proper economic term for it. Let's say a developer puts in a new housing development and agrees to pay for the costs of a new traffic signal and road modifications to allow for access. Those funds help to put in the signal, but don't cover the extra burden on every other driver who now has to stop for the light. As one example for energy, it might be those people who are downwind of a coal-fired plant who get fallout of heavy-metal-containing particulates and have increased birth-defect rates.

But I do disagree with the characterization of my discussion as populist, which usually carries the stench of a shallow and emotional approach.

My apologies. Your overall approach is, indeed, one of the more rational and balanced ones I've seen. I meant that much of the opposition is populist in nature.

This isn’t just a knee jerk, populist reaction. This is a case of government mandating what we should purchase. Just because they “banned” them by making a standard that it was impossible for them to meet, or banning them outright by fiat, the end result is the same.

Agreed. Electric companies should be covering costs of extra usage (which they will pass on to ALL customers, even though they should be scaled to go where the actual extra costs are, in some cases)...though I admit that apportioning costs properly is impossible. And that's why Band-Aid-style approaches and proxies are used.

I also note that one factor against residential lighting being a big problem is that it is mostly not used during peak times.

[cherokee1]

Yeah, me too——I layed in a 20 year supply but I’m not bummed about it. I started laying in extras back around 2005 when I started seeing GE bulbs made in China. I bought only US and Mexican made bulbs and now GE has closed their last US plant. I figured that 20 years would give me enough time to set up some tools to make my own bulbs if Congress couldn’t get it right So my plan is still operable since I have no intention of buying Chineefreekingbulbs.

[cherokee1]

Boy did you give me a flash there——Stand in John Kerry’s old spot and chuck squiggle bulbs over the White Hut fence! That sound like fun even if I wasn’t mad about it. Possile slogan: “make mercury, not war”!——I have to go rest now.

[cherokee1]

A color difference might not kill you but the strobe effect of fluorescents just might. I don’t allow fluorescent anything in my machine room. When machine speeds and light frequencies match or synchronize a spinning tool might appear to be frozen——there are a whole bunch of places where squiggle bulbs shouldn’t be used.

[SkyDancer]

Ya and I bet they’d arrest you for throwing dangerous materials. Ironic, huh?

[supremedoctrine]

THis is good news for those strange Americans who actually like to SEE what they’re doing.
I knew this thing was dead in the water right from the beginning. The CFLs are inferior in every regard.
Sorry, GE. Pick up your marbles and go home, your Agenda doesn’t hack it, and neither does Obama’s.

[ichabod1]

I think sunlight can be highly variable as well. These standard CFLs with a very blue spectral dominance are most similar to the overhead noon-day sun while I find the incandescents to be more like the comfortable, comforting light of morning and evening, after the sunlight is filtered through more of the atmosphere. I think that’s why they seem harsh while the good old incandescents are warmer and softer.

I never get over the oddness of the fact that for an object to appear a certain color, it means that the object LACKS that color and is thus unable to absorb it.

[ELS]

I think the person who did the analysis for the agencies should be identified and rendered up for a thorough caning in the Well of the House!

LOL! I'd watch C-SPAN for that. And before the caning, he/she should be thoroughly mocked for his/her "analysis" of light bulb usage.

[waltorr]

I will not buy those things . you can get the real light bulbs on the internet real easy .

[rlmorel]

No apology was necessary, since I had the drift of what you were saying. I see your examples, but I have to admit I wouldn't have thought of them. I guess "hidden costs" is the best way to describe them. The great Thomas Sowell often observes that people often have a weakness for their inability to think past "Stage One", in that a lot of things sound great until someone says "Okay, I will let you do that thing you want to do. What happens next?" That exercise, which one of the professors he admired cajoled him into participating in (after he espoused liberal economic activities during a class) was a key event in changing him from a typical mush-filled-brain-liberal student into the brilliant conservative he is today. I was trying to find the actual text where he related it, but found this expression of what "stage one thinking" is:

EXAMPLE OF NOT THINKING PAST STAGE ONE

In this case, I think your examples are third stage thinking, and I didn't go there! As for the losses in electrical transmission, I had mistakenly heard had heard that up to 40% of electricity transmitted over high tension lines is lost. It is lower, but in checking at least this one source, I found this, which states 30% converted into heat:

****************************************************************
High-Voltage Transmission Lines

So we now finally come to the topic of this page: the transport of large amounts of electrical power over long distances. This is done with high-voltage transmission lines, and the question is: why high voltage? It certainly has a negative safety aspect, since a low voltage line wouldn't be harmful (you can put your hands on a 12 V car battery, for example, you won't even feel it; but make sure you don't put metal across the terminals, you'll get a huge current and a nasty spark!). Electric energy is transported across the countryside with high-voltage lines because the line losses are much smaller than with low-voltage lines.

All wires currently used have some resistance (the development of high-temperature superconductors will probably change this some day). Let's call the total resistance of the transmission line leading from a power station to your local substation R. Let's also say the local community demands a power P=IV from that substation. This means the current drawn by the substation is I=P/V and the higher the transmission line voltage, the smaller the current. The line loss is given by Ploss=I²R, or, substituting for I,

Ploss = P²R/V²

Since P is fixed by community demand, and R is as small as you can make it (using big fat copper cable, for example), line loss decreases strongly with increasing voltage. The reason is simply that you want the smallest amount of current that you can use to deliver the power P. Another important note: the loss fraction

Ploss/P = PR/V²

increases with increasing load P: power transmission is less efficient at times of higher demand. Again, this is because power is proportional to current but line loss is proportional to current squared. Line loss can be quite large over long distances, up to 30% or so. By the way, line loss power goes into heating the transmission line cable which, per meter length, isn't very much heat.

****************************************************************

[muawiyah]

For a good long while we used to get irradiated beef at the local Giant. Then it disappeared.

I gather once Giant fell into the hands of Belgian and Brit owners they were no longer concerned with food safety.

Now not everybody bought irradiated beef ~ but people who understand the process and the value a reduced pathogen load has did.

Frankly, if the stubbornly ignorant die and fail to breed we have not really lost have we!

[rlmorel]

"...Frankly, if the stubbornly ignorant die and fail to breed we have not really lost have we!"

LOL, no...I just wish sometimes they would GET OUT OF THE WAY! Unfortunately, many of those types go into politics and activism, and we get nanny-statism as a result.

[waus]

Great...anybody want to buy 47 1/2 cases (100/case) of 100w Sylvania light bulbs?

[muawiyah]

We could add this caning thing to the ceremonies surrounding the annual State of the Union Address.

Before the President's entry the Speaker would announce that this year's nearest living Darwin Award awardee in the federal government would be brought to the Well and caned.

While they were bringing him or her in kicking and screaming, the Speaker would ask the Clerk to read the "cause" ~ and it'd be a humdinger. EVERYBODY would think this person needed caned.

Then, the Speaker would announce the arrival of the President and everything would go on as normal ~ but the bureaucracy would certainly be chastened!

[GOP Poet]

yes.

[Ophiucus]

Good point. That was the first time they decided to mandate something “for our own good” – making themselves the ones who decide what “good” is

Precisely, wearing a seat-belt is a good idea for personal safety but people should have the freedom to be stupid without government interference.

Besides, people's stupidity is job security. I 'specialized' in emergency medicine. :-)